The morning after a compelling 3-2 victory by AC Milan at the Bernabéu a fortnight ago, the front page of Mundo Deportivo, the Spanish newspaper, declared that Real Madrid, the most expensive team ever assembled, had gone “from Galácticos to Geriatricos”.

It was a nice line, but, since the obvious conclusion last night was that those same Geriatricos had almost come of age in earning a 1-1 draw at the San Siro, it missed the point.

Whatever the flaws of Real’s galácticos project, they have youth, if not necessarily time, on their side. And in any case, if Madrid is where world-class players go in pursuit of immortality, not to mention riches, Andriy Shevchenko, Ronaldo, David Beckham and Ronaldinho will happily testify that Milan is the destination of choice for the fading star desperate to relaunch his career on a stage befitting his name.

That was the context of last night’s meeting between Real and Milan and between Kaká and Ronaldinho, men who in their youth stood on opposite sides of Brazil’s social divide and are now separated by the equally distinct, if more fluid, line that distinguishes the great and the once great.

For the Milanese, whose devotion to Kaká was laid bare before kick-off by the numerous banners stating that they still love him for the “six years of emotion” he brought to the club, this had promised to be a difficult evening. But those banners were hidden as soon as the action started, only to return at the final whistle — when the big screen showed him walking into a warm embrace from Ronaldinho — and the crowd rose to applaud the returning and unforgotten hero.

It had been billed as Kaká’s night, but, it did not quite work out that way. Real dominated the game — 23 attempts on goal, ten on target, are astonishing figures for a visiting team at the San Siro — and the former Milan forward showed some lovely touches along with the unheralded workrate that has always underpinned his talent. But even though Karim Benzema scored an early goal and Xabi Alonso and Lassana Diarra controlled midfield, Real were left looking awkwardly over their shoulders in group C at Marseilles because of Milan’s equaliser, a penalty converted with panache by Ronaldinho.

There can be only one reason why a man in his late 20s seeks to show off about his age: he is worried people might think he is older than he really is. Ronaldinho’s decline in recent years has been such that it takes the No 80 on his back, reflecting the year of his birth, to remind you that he is only 29, just two years Kaká’s senior.

Ronaldinho, though, has always worked to a curious timetable. An underachiever when he joined Barcelona from Paris Saint-Germain at the age of 23, having turned down Manchester United, but, after three wonderful seasons at the Nou Camp, where he was the most beguiling forward in world football, the spark went out of his game.

It said everything about Ronaldinho that, by last year, Manchester City were the only Barclays Premier League club who wanted him. When Milan came in for him — paying a fee of little more than £10 million for a 28-year-old who had been World Player of the Year in 2004 and 2005 — it was primarily a commercial venture, concocted by Silvio Berlusconi, the club’s president, with no input from Carlo Ancelotti, the coach, who already had, in Kaká and Alexandre Pato, the players who represented Brazilian football’s present and future.

Is there something about Brazilian footballers that threatens their longevity? Ronaldo, a phenomenon in his teenage years at PSV Eindhoven and later at Barcelona, fell into an injury-ravaged decline from which he emerged briefly to dominate the 2002 World Cup finals and to have an enjoyable couple of seasons with Real, but the later years of his career will be looked back upon with sadness.

Likewise Rivaldo, a world-beater in 2002 but playing his football with Olympiacos in Greece by 2004, having fallen victim to the same mysterious Catalan malaise that later did for Ronaldo.

Last night, though, Ronaldinho was in the mood. Long before his penalty, after Pepe was harshly judged to have handled Gianluca Zambrotta’s cross, there was a glorious pass that had Raúl Albiol in a spin and gave Pato an opportunity. More surprisingly, there was also an overzealous tackle on Pepe, with both feet off the ground, for which he was lucky not to be shown at least a yellow card.

By the end, Ronaldinho looked exhausted. When Filippo Inzaghi burst into the penalty area with two minutes remaining, the Brazilian hung back, his legs unable to carry him towards the danger zone. This was one Geriatrico who was starting to feel his age.

As for Kaká, there will always be a place for him at Milan. Literally, one suspects, when, like Ronaldinho and the rest, he reaches the stage where his best years are behind him.